Philip Pusey / [Sir Ernest Clarke].

  • Clarke, Ernest, Sir.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Philip Pusey / [Sir Ernest Clarke]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    life (in 1853) lie was again elected President, but was unable to attend the annual meeting at Lincoln in 1854 on account of the serious illness of his wife. Undoubtedly the six or seven years following 1838 were the happiest and most prosperous of Mr. Pusey’s career. He was then in the prime of his life. He met on terms of intellec¬ tual equality all the leading thinkers and public men of the time. If he intervened in a debate in Parliament, the Minister who replied paid a little compliment to his sincerity, or his ability, or his knowledge of the subject. He breakfasted with Samuel Kogers and Monckton Milnes. He entertained Lord Spencer, Sir Robert Peel, Gladstone, Carlyle, Bunsen, Wkewell, Grote, the Bishop of Oxford (Wilberforce), and many more. He attended the meetings of learned societies (he became a P.R.S. on May 27, 1830). He was to be seen at the Athenaeum and the Travellers’, and was a member of the more eclectic Grillion Club. He was one of the founders of the London Library in 1840, and a member of the original committee. He discussed Plato and Demosthenes with the scholars, religion with the theologians, and agricultural im¬ provement with the chemists and farmers. He wrote on philo¬ sophy for the a Quarterly Review,” on current topics for the “ Morning Chronicle,” and upon farming for the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. Bunsen—with whom he had already formed an acquaint¬ ance at Rome —came to England for the first time in 1838, and spent a great deal of time with the Puseys as their guest in Berkshire and in London. Bunsen’s memoirs of this period are full of references to u dear Pusey.” Apropos of a meeting between Pusey and Arnold, Bunsen writes to his wife on February 13, 1839, “I wish I could give you an adequate idea of the love and admiration I feel for Pusey; admiration for his extraordinary statesmanlike judgment, wherever he is, on the ground of his Parliamentary life and business, in which he moves as a fish in the water; not less, for his admirable temper and character.” 1 Later he speaks of Pusey and himself (there being no debate in the House) u remaining together and reading Sophocles, which cheered the good friend considerably ”; of a discussion between Pusey and himself, lasting all the afternoon, on the chronology of St. Paul’s Epistles, and the authorship of the Acts of the Apostles; of breakfasting with Pusey upon “ ham and speculative philosophy.” And again : “ Pusey is a most unique union of a practical Englishman and an intellectual 1 Memoirs of Baron C. J. Bunsen, vol. i. pp. 504, 507, 508, 522.
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